Guy Reams (00:00.718)
This is day 172, contemplating your navel. When I was young, I often found myself sitting quietly somewhere staring off into the distance and just thinking. I wasn't solving anything complicated. I wasn't solving any complicated problems or coming up with anything profound. I was just simply processing the things that I saw and heard and thinking about what they meant.
I was a curious creature growing up and I was always contemplating whether or not I should accept what somebody was trying to teach me. I'm not exactly sure why I was born a skeptic, but that's just the way it was. I found out later in life there were others like me that were always questioning, exploring, poking holes, and sometimes poking fun at the things people presented as fact. Often out on my grandfather's farm in Midwest Colorado,
I would be in one of these reflective moods. He would sometimes come across me and ask, what are you doing contemplating your navel? I had no idea what that meant. I had no notion whatsoever if it was a sarcastic statement, a form of ridicule, or just a popular expression. So I laughed as if I was in on the joke, which clearly I was not. Later, I would learn that this was just an expression popular in the 1970s. Let's see if can interpret why this became a saying.
There's a complicated background to the concept and what it refers to is this actual practice known as navel gazing. The official term for this, and this is a fun word, is omf-fowelskepsis. Think? How pronounce it? This was a practice known to Christian mystics who believed that intense meditation focused on the navel could help them commune with God. The navel was considered to be the spiritual center.
The Catholic Church obviously didn't condone this practice, though it may have continued in some branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is likely where the name originated, though perhaps not the full cultural meaning. In Hinduism and later Buddhism, both traditions considered the navel an energy center or chakra. Focusing on this area during meditation allows a person to regulate inner energy and use it to achieve clarity, or what is sometimes called enlightenment.
Guy Reams (02:22.531)
Those who contemplate the navel, therefore, are people seeking spiritual enlightenment, self-awareness, and a way to transcend the petty concerns of day-to-day life. However, in Midwestern Colorado, this was not what the phrase referred to. It was a cynical and humorous way of poking fun at the wave of spiritual intellectualism that had begun spreading across the United States.
At the time, there was rapid rise in interest and adoption of Eastern religious practices in the Western world. All things considered, this was probably a good thing, but it did have some repercussions that didn't go unnoticed by the working class. They began using navel gazer to describe someone lost in their thoughts, someone that was self-absorbed and disconnected from the reality that the common person had to deal with. The phrase became shorthand for anything unproductive.
time-wasting or action delaying, overthinking things, spending too much time focused on yourself, and not enough time solving problems or getting things done. So essentially, my grandfather was calling me lazy. As I think about this now, I realize that I advocate for and often participate in meditative practices. My grandfather wouldn't have prescribed this as solution to life's challenges. He'd probably recommend fishing.
or maybe a week-long elk hunting trip. I think there's a lesson here in this recollection of mine. On one hand, taking time to reflect and meditate and focus on inner strength is important. On the other hand, spending too much time dwelling on internal angst and struggle rarely results in anything productive. Clearly, a balance is needed. I wonder what my grandfather would have said if I had replied, I'm allowing my soul a moment to reflect on what it has learned.
so that I might reserve my strength and focus for the next chore you assign me. Would have loved to see his reaction to that, especially coming from a seven-year-old.